If you thought that getting a random college roommate when you were 18 was tough, imagine living with a stranger in a senior home — especially someone who has the exact opposite personality from you.

In David Lindsay-Abaire’s play “Ripcord” — opening Chenango River Theatre’s 2018 season on Friday — crabby Abby (Suzan Perry) is forced to share her room at the Bristol Place Senior Living Facility with chipper new arrival Marilyn (Dori May Ganisin). Because it’s on the top floor and gets plenty of sun, the room is prime real estate, and Abby has driven off all others who dared to invade her space.

Marilyn’s sunny disposition makes her a tough nut to crack, though, so Abby makes her a wager: If she can make Marilyn angry, Marilyn has to leave, but if Marilyn makes Abby afraid of anything, Marilyn stays and gets the preferred bed by the window.

Soon, what seems like a harmless bet escalates into a dangerous game of comic one-upmanship that features the ladies going to a haunted house and taking a skydiving lesson (which inspired the title of the play), along with some all-too-real confrontations with their pasts.

Perry returns from New York City for her third production at the Greene theater (previously starring in 2012’s “Miracle on South Division Street” and 2014’s “The Velocity of Autumn”), and she recently appeared in a recurring role on Tina Fey’s Netflix sitcom “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”

Before CRT, she made frequent appearances at Cider Mill Playhouse in Endicott, where she performed alongside Ganisin in a 2008 production of “When We Are Married.”

“I love it up here. I have some really great friends and it’s great to come and visit, and have somebody else pay for it!” Perry said with a laugh.

She also appreciates being reunited with Ganisin: “She’s a very giving actor, and she’s really easy to work with. I adore her.”

The other four actors in “Ripcord” are making their debuts at CRT: Alexis Robbins (who performs in NYC with the sketch comedy team Steve’s Hard Milk) as Marilyn’s daughter Colleen; Bradley Michalakis (a member of NYC comedy group Loop Troupe) as Colleen’s husband Derek; Chris Hatch (a theater professor at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in Geneva) as Abby’s son Benjamin; and Ricky DeRosa (a SUNY Oneonta grad) as nursing home aide Scotty.

Starring in the Chenango River Theatre production of “Ripcord” are, from left, Chris Hatch, Bradley Michalakis, Suzan Perry, Alexis Robbins and Dori May Ganisin.(Photo: Photo by Bill Lelbach)

Directing “Ripcord” is Drew Kahl, a SUNY Oneonta professor who has helmed several shows and acted in others at CRT since it began in 2007. As always, CRT artistic director Bill Lelbach is designing and building the set — which offered challenges because of the play’s multiple settings and special requirements.

“Figuring out a way to do the show to allow you to do all the scenes without seeing the bedroom in the background was part of the trick,” Lelbach said. “I think we’ve solved that somewhat eloquently, so we’ll see what the audience thinks.”

Robbins (who also briefly plays a “woman in white” in “Ripcord”) describes Colleen as “a very positive person with a little bit of a dark side. Marilyn has kind of a dark past, and Colleen experienced that with her but it comes out in different ways.”

In a pivotal role, DeRosa said Scotty “dreams about being an actor, and he watches them change throughout the course of the play.”

Lindsay-Abaire has won praise from critics over the past 20 years for plays such as “Fuddy Meers,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “Good People” and “Rabbit Hole” (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama), but also wrote the books for musicals such as “High Fidelity” and “Shrek the Musical.”

Hatch (who also plays brief roles as an “evil clown” and a parachute instructor) believes that the play offers a moral or two along the way, “without getting hit over the head with it.”

“Even if you’ve gone through terrifying things, there’s still the potential of what’s to come being awesome,” he said. “It’s a recurring theme throughout the play, and that’s what I think the whole parachute analogy is: It’s terrifying, but there’s the potential for this awesome experience.”

In interviews, Lindsay-Abaire has described “Ripcord” as his attempt to marry the comical and dramatic sides of his work, and that adds a third dimension to the play beyond the common “odd couple” scenario.

“The play has a depth to it that’s refreshing,” Hatch said. “It’s really funny, but at the same time there’s a whole lot of heart and creativity to it as well. It’s not just Felix and Oscar in the apartment the whole time — it’s much more than that.”

“The play is surprising,” Robbins agreed. “It’s full of visual surprises but also emotional surprises.”